Gestalt 101
by LizD
Summary: Morning After the 100th - The Part In The Sum of the Whole. --- Just something to snack on while we are waiting for the rest of the season to air.


_AN: Typically I write FanFiction to fix something that went horribly wrong on the show in my personal untrained opinion. With **Bones** however I feel that the creators, writers and actors all really do love and respect the characters they are creating and absolutely want to give the best story possible for themselves as well as for the viewers. For the past year they have been ramping up the SHIP between Booth and Brennan which has been fun and a little stressful. I will say right now before the rest of the season has aired, I think that they are going to give the viewers a very promising end of season and set us up nicely for a Season 6 and beyond without the use of typical hackneyed annoying plot devises to continue to keep Booth and Brennan apart. If any show can intelligently write the leads 'getting together' and keep it interesting for the viewers it is **Bones**. I hope I am right. Major kudos to Hart Hanson, Stephen Nathan, David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel and the rest of the writing, production, directing and acting crew._

_That being said, the 100th episode left me hopeful and sad at the same time. While I trust Hart & Co., I couldn't wait. I know they will produce a much more interesting story but I have a one shot submission for **Bones** FanFic readers that resolves the night of (well, morning after) the 100th episode differently (and probably a little too quickly) than what we saw. So this offering slips in after **The Parts In The Sum of The Whole**. Please enjoy. No disrespect to everyone affiliated with the real show. Keep up the great work._

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**Gestalt 101**

**By LizD**

Brennan sat at her desk staring blankly at the folder in front of her. She knew all the words, she understood all the conclusions, she had found three errors made by her latest grad-student-of-the-week, but it didn't matter. It wasn't important, it wasn't even interesting: male, approximate age at time of death was 20, COD: shrapnel wounds from a mortar shell, approximately 100 years prior - WWI. What difference did it make? He was dead. His family was dead. Anything that the Jeffersonian discovered about his death would go into a file and be as forgotten as his service, his life, his death. Brennan slammed the file shut. It was all so pointless. That poor young man never had a chance to live.

"Sweetie?" Angela called to her. "Have you been here all night? I haven't been home yet - there was this great party ..." Angela continued on but Brennan wasn't listening.

She watched blankly as her friend recounted some fantastic tale with music and dancing. Angela always had fantastic tales; she knew how to experience the moment, something Brennan never did. How was it that Angela considered herself Brennan's best friend? They were so different. Best on a scale of what? Angela was her only friend, the only real friend she ever had; so did that imply best? Booth was her friend too or had been. Was he a better friend than Angela? Somehow Brennan knew that 'best friend' implied female and that Booth was not a female - definitely not - so he had to be something other than a 'best friend.' Until that night she thought that Booth was the only one in the world who understood her, accepted her as she was, never asking her to change. Apparently she was wrong. He didn't know her at all. If he knew her he would never love her.

Angela finally finished her story knowing that none of it had gotten through. "Honey, you either slept here or you didn't go home last night and if that is the case - pray to the gods that it is - I need details. Was it Booth - please let it be Booth. So tell me, was it Booth? Did you to finally do the deed? Was it great? Shouldn't you be there still? Always pegged Booth as a morning guy?"

"Booth?" Brennan looked away back down at her file. "No. I was working."

"Okay, what's going on?"

"I am not in love, Angela," Brennan said defensively.

"And Denial is not just a river in Egypt."

"I'm not," she repeated. "With Booth or anyone else. I have never been in love - I just don't see the logic."

"There is no logic in love, sweetie," Angela explained again. "That's the beauty of it. It is selfless and selfish at the same time. It is fire and ice. The more you give the more you get back. There is no test for it, there is no math that gets you there. It is the only time when two halves make more than the whole - so much more."

"It's not rational. I can't prove it. I can't quantify it, therefore I can't accept it. It's not a character flaw. It's who I am. It has nothing to do with my parents' abandoning me. I was like this before. I'm sorry for Booth, but --"

"Sorry for Booth? Sweetie, what is going on?"

"I understand that he sees things differently - but that is also not my fault. I don't want ... things don't need to change."

"OK, Ok, Ok," Angela stopped her. "Tell me what happened."

"The book ... Sweet's book. He thinks we are in love with each other. This is why I hate psychology."

"BREN," Angela stopped her. She needed real answers. "Did you sleep with Booth?"

"No ... No!" Brennan protested. "He doesn't want sex. It would have been easier if it was sex. I can handle sex; that makes sense to me. But from the very beginning he wanted something else. He wants something else; something that I can't give - something no one can give - something that doesn't exist."

"What does he want, sweetie?"

"Booth wants someone who will love in him 50 years," she said flatly as if it were a ridiculous notion.

A sweet smile spread across Angela's face. "And he wants that to be you?"

"It's a fantasy, Angela. It isn't real. The idea of eternal love - love itself. Booth believes in that."

"A lot of us do."

"Not me."

"I know you like to say that, sweetie, probably trying to convince yourself as well as the people around you but I think you do."

Brennan shook her head. "I don't ---."

"Yes, you do, Bren," Angela said gently stopping Brennan from finishing her sentence. "You just don't think it can happen for you, that you are unlovable and incapable of giving love - and that does have more than a little to do with your parents and Russ taking off when you were a kid. But you aren't a kid anymore and you aren't alone in the world - at least you don't need to be. Part of life is risk and it is risky to fall in love - I ought to know. We have talked about this before, sweetie, you know you can have more - you are just scared. You shouldn't be. You can trust Booth. He is one of the good guys."

"I do trust him --- often with my life," she stated matter-of-factly.

"But not with your heart?"

"I don't want to hurt him," she defended. "I never wanted to hurt him. It's not my fault. He changed the rules. It's ludicrous - relationships are --"

"Ephemeral," Angela's said. "I know you think so, but trust me sweetie, love is not. Love can last a lifetime - it can last an eternity."

Brennan shook her head in disbelief. "You have no evidence of that."

"You are short changing yourself, Bren. And I know that accepting love from another living soul is scary. All kinds of bad things can happen and often do. And people ... well people can let you down - and they usually do. And you can disappoint them too - and that is sad, but it is not life threatening - it feels like it is, but it isn't. Can I promise you that nothing bad will ever happen between you and Booth, no. Will you actually be together next week, next year or in 50 years? I don't know ... but wouldn't it be nice to think so? Wouldn't it be nice to hope for that? Isn't that better use of you energy than identifying people who are gone?"

"He said he had to move on," Brennan protested weakly.

"Don't let him."

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Cam opened the door to a disheveled Booth. "Seeley ... what's going on?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, Cam."

"Come in," she said stepping back. "What happened?"

"Sweets ... Sweets happened."

"That's right, you read his book. So?"

Booth finally realized that Cam was in her bathrobe and her hair was wet. "I'm sorry. It's early."

"Yeah, well ... it's 5:00AM. Have you been out all night?" she said suspiciously. She had known Booth in his gambling days - this was how he looked when he lost - lost big.

"Walking, I was walking ... just walking," he defended.

"What happened with Sweets?"

"A bunch of psychobabble but in the end ... he thinks that we are in love with each other."

"Ok," she said like it wasn't a surprise.

"He was half right," he said with his voice cracking.

"Don't do that, Seeley," Cam warned. "Do not pretend that she doesn't love you."

"I don't have to pretend. She said it ... in so many words ... and then ..."

"Then what?"

"Said she couldn't ... she didn't want ... she doesn't want to try ..."

"Oh." Her face washed with sadness. She knew Booth had made the first big move and was shot down. "I'm sorry. You know she is just scared."

"I know ... I know ... but where does that leave me? I can't wait for her forever? I mean seriously Cam ... what more do I have to do to prove that I am not going to abandon her like her family?"

"You can't make that kind of promise, Booth."

"I can," he protested.

"You could get killed any day ... any of us could, but you carry a badge and a gun. You chase after the bad guys."

"She is not afraid of me dying."

"She doesn't know what she is afraid of other than opening herself up, risking and losing. She made a nice safe life for herself, then you came a long - opened the door to something else for her. I am sure you confuse the hell out of her. It is going to take her a minute to decide to walk through the door."

"Oh come on. Cam. Bones makes split decisions; she doesn't have to think."

"She does if she is going to change her mind."

"She has been with other men."

"No," she protested. "No one like you. No one who loved her, not like you. She has had sex partners, dates, men who interested her for a time - but no one that she loved, no one that loved her. She wouldn't allow it."

"Great, so if she didn't love me or I didn't love her then we could be together."

Cam smiled. "Yeah, I guess ... some twisted logic in there, but we are talking about Brennan."

"I don't buy it."

"All she ever asked you for was sex, and you had to push it - ask for it all and a life time supply of turtle wax too."

"Most women would kill for that."

Cam smiled thinking that she would have particularly if it came from him. "Brennan isn't most women. Give her a minute."

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"My book is crap," Sweets announced over the busy kitchen.

"Dr. Sweets," Chef Gordon Gordon Wyatt called back. "To what do I owe this early morning honor?"

"My book is crap ... it was all based on their un-acted upon love."

"Well if you were to ask me, and I know you are not ... but I would say that it is very acted upon. It may be a bit chaste for your tastes, but that says more about you than them, don't you think?"

"Did you know that their first case was a year before my book started? Did you know that they nearly had sex ... that they kissed? They missed their chance and they took it out on each other. For the past five years they have been struggling with their choice not to ... to ... to cross that line."

"Is that how you see it? Interesting."

"How do you see it?"

"Why business as usually, of course."

"That doesn't make sense."

"What stopped them from consummating this grand passion agenda that you are pushing on the night in question?"

"Tequila."

"Was it?"

"Well they told me that Dr. Brennan suggested it, and then changed her mind."

"Because of tequila ... must have been some powerful agave in that bottle."

"It was after they kissed," Sweets suggested like that could be an answer.

"Was it ... only a kiss, interesting."

"Stop saying that." Sweets considered for a moment. "Well Booth did confess his gambling problem before they kissed."

"So if I am understanding you: Dr. Brennan suggested they could - what, have sex? Then Booth told her about his gambling addiction, they kissed and then she reneged on the sex claiming that it was due to the tequila."

"Essentially."

"It sounds to me, Dr. Sweets, like nothing has changed in the past five or six years."

"How can you say that?" Sweets thought for a moment as Gordon Gordon Wyatt waited. "Because Dr. Brennan has intimacy issues and Agent Booth ... well Agent Booth pushed it beyond ..."

"Beyond just a _**roll in the hay**_, as you Americans so colorfully put it.

"So they look for excuses to keep themselves together but apart." Chef Wyatt shrugged. "They kissed! They were a taxi ride away from consummating --"

"Do you think if they had sex that they would admit their love for each other?"

"Of course."

"Do you? Interesting." Sweets looked aggravated. "I propose that Agent Booth wants more than sex," Chef Wyatt said. "He wants love - something he has never found but wants desperately. Oh yes, he is the hero, the white knight, did you call him? Saving women, bedding women, even going so far as to father a child with a woman. He claims he has been looking for a serious relationship his whole life, but as yet at forty he remains unmarried?" Sweets remained silent. "Interesting that he has chosen Dr. Brennan as his next paramour."

"Dr. Brennan who doesn't do serious relationships. So you are suggesting that Booth has intimacy issues too."

He smiled sadly. He would have to explain it in little words for Sweets. "You stated that neither one has been in a serious relationship since they met, I would suggest that neither had been in a serious relationship until they met."

"So you agree that they are in love with each other."

"That is not my business Dr. Sweets, nor do I suspect it is any of yours - your book aside. Ask yourself Dr. Sweets why you pursued studying this pair? Why is it important to you if they DO or the DON'T? If they will or they won't? And finally ask yourself what the true testament to love is - is it really just sex? Or an admission of love? If each admitted to their feelings to each other or themselves - to your satisfaction - how would it affect you? And what would it do to each of them to step outside their safety zone? It could cause much more harm than good, don't you think?"

"Possibly."

"Possibly, possibly not ... but in the end, they didn't ask for your help."

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Booth put on the coffee and struggled to make a few decisions. Cam may have been right, or wrong, but it didn't matter. How could he go to work, to work with her? He said they could continue to work together and after a day, a week or a month of awkwardness they probably could have found their GROOVE again, but Booth didn't want to wait. He didn't want to find a new groove. He wanted out. It might have been slightly vindictive, but he had a right. He had waited six years for the next invitation into her life and she was just not going to give it. People don't change.

The knock on his door was no surprise - partly because he still didn't know what time it was and he wasn't expecting anyone important.

"Bones!" he declared when saw her standing on the other side of the door. She had clearly been up all night. Of course so had he so there really was no room for recrimination.

On the way over, she still was unsure she wanted to enter into a relationship outside of work with Booth, but she knew there was more to say than what was said. After her talk with Angela she needed to see him, to talk to him. The need to talk, to defend her position, to beg for his understanding instantly faded when she saw him. Sadness still edged his eyes; frustration and disappointment were hardening around the sides of his mouth. She had already hurt him. She saw his pain and hers reflected back. Desire over took her; desire to protect him, to sooth him, to take his pain away. She stepped close to him and ran her hands up his chest and locked her fingers behind his neck.

"So ... you love me?" she asked. "You are in love with me?"

"Yeah," he breathed. "I suppose you need me to prove it to you - charts and graphs, maybe even a litmus test?"

"No." She kissed him.

"Wait," he said pulling himself away. "Wait." He stepped back.

"I can't promise you 50, 40 or even 30 years," she said soberly. Her eyes welled with tears that she could no longer hold back. "But I don't want to lose you in my life - not now and no time that I can imagine in the future. I have never felt this way before. I can only conclude that I love you. That I am in love with you. Can that be enough?" He didn't want to accept it. "For now? Please?"

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"What is wrong with you?" Cam walked directly up to Sweets when he came in the doors of the lab. He looked pretty ragged and worn out too.

"Angela left me a message."

"Are you crazy?" Angela called from the cat walk loud enough for the whole floor to hear her. "You have done more damage than ... than ... than I don't know what."

"You may have just ruined their best chance at happiness," Cam said sternly and quietly.

"You just had to push ... had to push that book of yours," Angela was walking toward him. Sweets just stood there and waited for the onslaught. "Aren't you going to defend yourself?"

"No," he said flatly. "There is nothing to defend. They should have stopped me."

"Don't you dare blame this on them."

"You are the one that had to push this agenda."

"I know, I know ... and I am smarter than that. I just .."

"You just think you can fix them. You think if they declare their love and fall into the sack that all will be right with the world. Well it might be right in your world, but what about them? Do you honestly think that it would fix anything? Brennan will still be Brennan and Booth will still be Booth."

"You know they love each other ... are in love with each other," Sweets defended.

"That is not our business," Cam stated.

"You don't want them to be happy?"

"Brennan didn't seem very happy this morning," Angela stated.

"And I have never seen Booth so broken," Cam asserted.

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Booth pulled Brennan closer and kissed the top of her head pulling up the sheets. "What changed your mind?" he said in a happily sated voice.

"You ... your instincts." She snuggled into the crook of his arm. "You are the only person I trust in the world and if you think this is a good idea, then I trust you."

"You didn't last night."

"I didn't six years ago," she pronounced. "Last night ... well I was ... I was just ..."

"Scared."

She leaned up on her elbow. "I don't want to hurt you, Booth. I am still not convinced that relationships are ..."

"I know -" he stopped her with a kiss.

"But it seemed like you could get hurt either way."

"And you?"

"I handle pain better than you do?"

"I don't want to talk about this now," he announced. He rolled away from her to get out of bed. He pulled his boxers back on. "I am not in this alone, am I Bones?"

"I thought I was very present," she leaned back into the pillows to watch him.

"I don't mean that." He couldn't stop the corners of his mouth from curling into a smile. "But there is more to this than that, isn't there?"

"I imagine there will be quite a bit more of _**that**_ in _**this**_," she flirted back.

"That is not what I am asking."

"I don't know what you are asking so I can't give you an answer." That wasn't enough for him. "I want to keep working together. And ..." She grinned. "... I certainly enjoyed our love making. I have - in the past - enjoyed being with you when we weren't on a case, so I imagine there will be quite a bit more time spent together and I look forward to that."

"I'm asking about a future Bones."

"Last night you said you wanted to give us a chance. That is all ... a chance."

"I did. I do. I just want to know that you --."

"I don't view THIS as a fling Booth, beyond that I can't say."

He sat down on the edge of the bed next to her. "But you do love me? Cause you have been pretty adamant that ... well ... I mean you have said - in so many words - that you didn't."

A sly smile crept across her face. "And I thought you were a man of action. I thought you believed that two people can become one when they make love ... to the point of breaking the laws of physics, I believe you said. Isn't that your definition of love?"

"I am not sure I have a definition," he defended. "When did I say that thing about physics?"

"Long time ago."

"Do you remember everything I said?"

"Not everything ... only the important things." She kissed him pulling him back down next to her on the bed. "Do you need more evidence of my feelings for you ... even if it is anecdotal?"

"I like collecting evidence - it's what I do."

"What we do," she corrected.

"What we do," he repeated.

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Both Booth and Brennan's phones started ringing at the same time dragging them back to waking. Each listened to whomever was calling and they hung up at the same time. Their eyes met. It was too soon for the real world to encroach on them but there was nothing to be done about that.

"We have a case," he said sadly. She just nodded. He looked a little nervous. He no idea how to transition from being naked with her to work mode. "We probably shouldn't show up together."

"We have in the past."

"You're right ... of course ... stupid." He got out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

"Booth," she called to him. "When you broke up with Cam you said it was because people who work together in high risk situations shouldn't be involved romantically."

"I did say that," he called with a mouthful of toothpaste.

"Our situations seem to be a lot more high risk than yours and Cam's were." He mumbled an agreement. "Does that me we shouldn't work together?"

He came back to the room. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other struggling with what to say. "Normally I would say yes, that is exactly what it means. If the FBI finds out, they will split us up - no question there - or not since you don't work for the FBI. But if they did it would just mean that you wouldn't be able to go into the field with me. You and I could still work together as long as you stayed in the lab." She didn't like that answer. "However, you have an ability to compartmentalize that is nothing short of amazing. I honestly believe that if any two people who are ..."

"having intercourse," she said flatly.

"Romantically involved," he corrected. "And can stay focused on the job is it us ... well you, and you will help me." She liked that answer. "So ... we keep this between us?"

"Angela will know immediately. You don't hide your emotions from her very well."

"Or yours."

" And she will tell Hodgins. Cam ... Cam will know."

"Cam will presume to know, but won't say anything."

"What about Sweets?"

"If we never talked about our relationship to him again it would be fine by me."

"He was right about us," she admitted. "I still hate psychology, but I guess we owe him something."

"Between us, Bones, strictly between us ... no one will ask and we won't tell ... OK? Did you bring a change of clothes?"

"In my car."

"You can use the shower first." Headed for the door to go get her bag. "Come on. Let's get a move on. Chop, chop."

"Can I use your toothbrush?" she asked. He turned with a look of disgust on his face. "After what we just did, you are going to deny me your toothbrush?"

"Fine," he said squeamishly. "I'll get a new one ... two." A very sweet smile crossed his face. 'Two' he thought. There would be a lot of things that would doubling in the coming days and weeks and months and with any luck years - maybe even 30, or 40 or 50. And that was nice to think about.

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_AN: Very nice to think about. Here's to the rest of the season and the people who bring us BONES._


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